Background

About six million years ago, the Mediterranean Sea almost
completely dried up! We know this because scientists
discovered an area of salt up to 3 kilometers thick located a
few hundred meters below the ocean floor in the 1970s.

This
picture of Death Valley, California shows what the dried-up basin
of the Mediterranean may have looked like.

In this website, we will tell the story of this event,
called the Messinian Desiccation. It marks the end of the Miocene epoch. We will present the
research we are doing on the consequences of this global change and
other related topics. You will learn about the geological setting of
the Messinian Desiccation, as well as current subjects that deal with
this kind of massive evaporation.

The timeline on this site will show you not only when this
event occured, but also the steps it took to get there, how
long it took for the basin to completely dry up, and when it
started to refill, since the Mediterranean Sea is back and
still exists today!